A legal drama spanning nearly seven years between the City of Fayetteville and four homeowners associations with private dams that breached during Hurricane Matthew shows no sign of stopping, as the city rejected a settlement offer from the plaintiffs last Monday.
The city confirmed its response to the letter but declined to provide specifics because of the ongoing litigation. Attorneys for the HOAs later provided CityView with the city’s response, which they received in a letter from City Attorney Lachelle Pulliam dated March 3.
When Hurricane Matthew tore through Fayetteville in 2016, it damaged the private dams owned by the Devonwood-Loch Lomond Lake Association, the Arran Lake Homeowners Association, the Rayconda Homeowners Association and the Strickland Bridge Road Homeowners Association. The broken dams left pools of murky water and dry land where private lakes used to be. (Strickland Bridge still has a lake and dam, but the dam is damaged and the lake has sedimentation problems, according to its HOA president).
The property owners sued the city in August 2018, arguing the city should be responsible for fixing the dams because it was using them for stormwater management. The city has fought the litigation, which has intensified into a legal battle ping-ponging between federal, state and local courts. The failed settlement proposal comes after the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled in October in favor of the HOAs, which had challenged the Cumberland County Superior Court’s 2023 ruling dismissing their case.
The legal dispute is another example of the increasing frustration many residents have felt with the city’s stormwater management. It adds to the ongoing debate over who should fix Fayetteville’s infrastructure affected by flooding and watersheds that may pose a risk to public safety, but are located in private property.
Settlement offer
In their Feb. 19 settlement offer, the HOAs’ attorneys Woody Webb and Matthew Van Horn proposed that the city assume “complete control and access” of the four lakes for both stormwater and recreational purposes, in exchange for restoring the dams to their pre-2016 hurricane condition. This arrangement could be reached through acquisition of the properties, easements or joint partnership, the attorneys said; it could benefit the city by increasing its recreational offerings and property tax revenues by increasing the value of the properties around the lakes.
“The expensive and endless litigation between the City and its citizens will finally reach an amicable resolution,” the letter said. “By repairing the HOA lakes and any other lakes throughout the watershed and fixing the stormwater infrastructure, the City will be in a better position to withstand future catastrophic events.”
The city rejected the offer, citing concerns over the legality of using public funds to improve private property, the high cost of repairs for limited stormwater benefits and that it would set an undesirable precedent of fixing private infrastructure.
“The burden of maintaining a private dam, and the risks of a catastrophic failure, must remain with the private dam owner, and should not be shifted to the broader, local tax base,” Pulliam wrote in response. “In that sense, a dam is no different than any other fixture located on private property put there to better the property.”
What’s next
Following the October N.C. Court of Appeals decision, a number of other developments have occurred in the case. These include:
- Oct. 28, 2024: City petitions the N.C. Court of Appeals for a rehearing
- Nov. 1, 2024: N.C. Court of Appeals denies city’s petition
- Dec. 13, 2024: City answers the HOAs’ original complaint in the Cumberland County Superior Court
- Jan. 17, 2025: HOAs file motion to strike down city’s answer to their complaint
- Feb. 19, 2025: HOAs send city settlement offer
- March 3, 2025: City rejects settlement offer
The Superior Court has not yet ruled on the plaintiffs’ motion to strike the defendants’ answer to their original complaint. Webb, the attorney for the HOAs, told CityView that the city sent him and his co-counsel discovery requests, which include interrogatories (questions) and requests to produce documents. Webb said they have about two more weeks to respond to the request.
Webb criticized the city’s response to the settlement offer, saying it was made in “bad faith.”
“We think it would be in everyone’s best interest to settle the case,” Webb said. “The funny thing is, even when it rains, like yesterday, you can see all the stormwater runoff just flowing through property owners properties into the HOA lakes — or what were lakes. And you can see all the trash and the pipes and everything. There’s no control of anything … It’s just not a pretty sight.”
In response to these claims, the city’s marketing and communications director, Loren Bymer, declined to comment.
“The City of Fayetteville does not make it a practice to litigate legal matters in the media and it would be inappropriate for me to speak or speculate on any such details surround any open cases,” Bymer said.
Ron Lien, president of the Strickland Bridge Road Homeowners Association, contends the city uses the Strickland Bridge lake, which he says now looks like “Thanksgiving gravy,” for stormwater management without upkeep. He claims increased development in the area and the city’s regulatory changes have exacerbated the lake’s degradation, leaving the HOA to bear the burden of issues the city has failed to address. (The city has repeatedly denied such claims.)
Lien called attention to the city’s stormwater ordinance change, enacted in 2019, which declares that the city cannot be held liable for stormwater management issues outside of city-owned property, even if it is doing work on them — including as a result of hurricanes. Lien argues this amendment effectively absolves the city of responsibility for the Strickland Bridge lake’s condition, even though, in his view, the city utilizes it as part of its broader stormwater system.
The HOA president says the city can and should fix the broken dams and restore the lakes to their former appearance.
“That’s all we want,” he said.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608. This story was made possible by donations from readers like you to CityView News Fund, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization committed to an informed democracy in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.
